Unsurprisingly, it was a love of food that brought London-based cookbook authors Dina Mousawi and Itab Azzam together.

“We met at a dinner at a mutual friends house,” Mousawi says. “Itab and I had both brought dishes. Hers was so delicious that I found her on Facebook just to get the recipe, and after that, we became friends.”

Their day jobs as theatre professionals and love of their Middle Eastern roots were really what prompted them to write Our Syria: Letters from Home, a cookbook that will be published in Canada on Oct. 3.

Mousawi, who was born in Iraq and brought up in the UK, is an actress/producer and Azzam, who was born and raised in Syria, is a producer. In 2014, they went to Beirut, Lebanon, to work with 60 Syrian refugee women on a reimagining of Sophocles’ Antigone. The story is set in a country ruined by civil war, in which the eponymous heroine battles a dictator for the right to bury the body of her brother. It had obvious parallels with the lives of the project’s participants.

“They too were living in a country ruled by a dictator, and many had brothers who were missing, with no chance to say goodbye,” Mousawi says.

The project was designed to help the women through their trauma, but friendships began to develop and Mousawi and Azzam were invited into the refugee camps for meals.

“They’d say, ‘Come to the camps. I want to cook you this or that’,” says Mousawi.

“We would go to their homes after rehearsals and they would make these incredible foods in tiny flats — some only had camping stoves in the hallway.”

“We were just a group of women having fun and dancing and talking and cooking together,” says Azzam.

“We would chat and share stories, a lot of which exemplified these women’s strength and resilience. We went back to London and started to think about how to share those stories. And that’s how it (the cookbook) began,” Mousawi says.

The book has 100 recipes, divided into categories like meze, main courses, and jams and pickles, The introduction draws a vivid picture of the beautiful, rich, complicated history and culture of Syria. Recipes come from Mousawi, Azzam, and the women they worked with in the refugee camps, whose stories are scattered through the book.

Why did Azzam and Mousawi decide a recipe book would be the best way to tell these women’s tales?

“With theatre, we have a limited platform. With a cookbook, you can go anywhere,” says Mousawi.

“In Syria, food is a source of pride and women value the time they spend together cooking — four or five women taking the time to make a feast together,” says Azzam. “My mum and her friends use food to create more sparks in their lives. At traditional weddings in Syria they would spend the whole night cooking, singing, dancing — making an event out of the preparation.”

Both say the book’s purpose is to shine a positive light on Syria.

“Everything that comes out of Syria is negative — all we hear about is war and death,” says Mousawi. “But it has this incredible food culture; something we could celebrate.”

At first glance, the recipes seem similar to Lebanese and Palestinian dishes. There are familiar favourites like hummus, stuffed vine leaves and tabbouleh. Azzam says the difference is in the diversity of the food.

“Syria’s bigger, so there are influences from neighbouring countries like Iraq and Turkey. It was on the silk route, so there are also hints of Armenian and Kurdish cuisine, especially in Aleppo. There’s even sweet and sour from the Far East.”

Syria also has a tradition of vegan food, and there’s a focus on cooking from scratch — the country was behind the Iron Curtain in the 1970s and 1980s, so the consumer revolution never happened and processed food is uncommon.

People often complain that it’s difficult to source ingredients for recipes from “exotic” cuisines, but Mousawi says it’s easy to make substitutions. At the back of the book is a Syrian pantry section which explains essential ingredients such as pomegranate molasses (if you can’t buy it, you can make it by reducing pomegranate juice to a thick syrup) and seven spices, a staple that includes fragrant cardamom and cloves.

Eating with Syrian refugees in Beirut meant cookbook authors Itab Azzam and Dina Mousawi left with a tale of food and friendship.Dina Mousawi /
PNG

Azzam describes writing the book as a cathartic experience. “Food keeps me connected to home. Cooking is the only thing I do every day that keeps me there — that’s true for the women we worked with, too. It’s a daily opportunity to connect with each other and our heritage and the things we are proud of.”

She says the women who contributed, most of whom remain in the camps in Beirut, love the fact that their names and recipes are in a book.

“Some of them were really pleased to have this connection to the west — that people are reading about them and thinking about them.”

The book is not a charity project, although the advance and half of the royalties are donated to projects that support people in Syria.

“We don’t want people to perceive Syria and its people as charity cases. What we’ve made is a beautiful book that represents the country and its people really well.”

“I’m Iraqi and didn’t know many Syrians before this. What strikes me is that they’re very generous. You go for a quick lunch and there will be a huge feast spread out for you. And they’re proud: Proud of their country,” Mousawi says.

Recipes

Fresh Thyme and Halloumi Salad

This salad from Aleppo adds a fragrant, citrusy edge to any meal and is possibly our favourite salad recipe in the whole book. It makes for a particularly great combination with roast lamb or roast chicken. The dressing left at the end is great for dipping crusty bread.

The old city of Aleppo in general is famous for its distinctive za’atar, a spice mix made of dried thyme and sesame, which is one of the must-have Syrian cupboard ingredients. It is imperative that if you visit Aleppo you return with a bag of their za’atar as a gift for friends.

0.7 oz (20g) fresh thyme

3 1/2 oz (100g) halloumi, cut roughly into ½ inch (1 cm) cubes

1 tomato, diced

1/2 small red onion, very thinly sliced

1 tsp (5 mL) ground Aleppo pepper

Squeeze of lemon

1 tbsp (15 mL) pomegranate molasses

Olive oil for drizzling

Make sure you buy the greenest, freshest thyme that doesn’t have woody stalks. Coarsely chop the thyme. If there are any particularly thick stalks, strip the leaves by running your fingers down the length of the stalk from top to bottom. Place the leaves in a bowl.

Add the halloumi, tomato, onion, pepper, lemon juice and molasses to the bowl and mix well. Drizzle with oil and serve.

Meatballs in a Tomato and Pepper Stew (Dawood Pasha)

Pasha was once one of the highest ranks in the elaborate hierarchy of the Ottoman Empire, so this dish is all about exclusivity and luxury. Dawood means David, so the recipe name translates as something like Lord David.

This dish is said to be named after one particular Lord David, who was governor in the Levant in the 19th century and loved this dish so much it became his signature. Despite all this grandeur the recipe is simple, and makes a great weekday supper with friends. It also keeps well, and often more delicious the next day. Serve with plain rice for a filling main course.

Sauce:

1 onion, finely diced

Vegetable oil, for frying

5 garlic cloves, chopped

1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced

1 lb (454 g) tomatoes, finely diced

2 tbsp (30 mL) tomato paste

Meatballs:

1 lb (454 g) ground lamb

1 onion, very finely chopped

1/2 large bunch of parsley, finely chopped

1 tsp (5 mL) 7 spices

Salt

Olive oil for drizzling

Cooked plain bulgur wheat or rice, to serve

Preheat oven to 320 F (160 C). For the sauce, fry the onion in a bit of oil until soft, then add the garlic and fry for a minute or two longer. Add the green pepper and tomatoes, then fry for a couple of minutes before turning the heat down to simmer for around 10 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and continue to simmer for a further 30 minutes or so, until the tomatoes have reduced.

For the meatballs, mix the lamb, onion, parsley, 7 spices, and salt in a bowl and mould into balls about 1 inch (2.5 cm) in diameter. Have a bowl of water handy to dip your fingers in to help create a smooth edge on the meatballs. Place them on a baking tray lined with parchment paper, drizzle with olive oil, and bake 4 minutes.

Take the meatballs out of the oven and add them with their juices to the tomatoes, which should have reduced to a thick sauce. Leave to simmer for 4 to 5 minutes, then take off the heat and serve with plain rice.

Serves 4

Chicken in Turmeric Yogurt (Mleheyya)

This is the favoured local dish of Sweida and Dera’a, two cities in the Haura region south of Damascus.

Among members of the Druze sect of Sweida, there is a range of songs about this dish and its serving traditions. Two burly men carry the copper tray of food into the party and everyone sings, “Tuck into the food, tuck in, you knights you honour us, and make us feel at home.” To show how generous the host is, ghee is then poured over the dish in huge quantities with great ceremony, and the girls sing, “Come on, soldier daughters. Pour the hot ghee ‘until it’s foamy.”

The traditions of making this dish are just as sacred. The night before a wedding, the relatives of the groom stay up all night braising meat until it falls off the bone, cooking huge batches of bulgur wheat and brewing the broth. And then there’s the singing and celebration while you do it. By the time the guests arrive, a few trays should be ready to eat. Groups of guests gather around and eat from the same tray. We skipped the hot ghee, but you can always add a bit at the end.

Vegetable oil, for frying

3 medium onions, sliced

1 lb (454 g) potatoes, peeled and diced

1/2 cup (125 mL) water

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced

Salt and pepper to taste

Cooked bulgur wheat to serve

Turmeric yogurt sauce:

3 1/2 cups (875 mL) plain yogurt

3 cups (750 mL) good quality stock

1 egg

1 1/2 heaped tsp (7.5 mL) ground turmeric

Heat a bit of oil in a frying pan and fry the onions over medium heat for 15 minutes, or until starting to caramelize. Add the potatoes and water, cover, and boil for 10 minutes, then add the chicken, season, and cook for a further 5 to 8 minutes.

In a blender mix the yogurt, stock, and egg very well. Pour into a pan, place over very low heat, and keep stirring in one direction until the mixture boils. The constant stirring is essential here, as it will keep the yogurt from curdling. Add the turmeric and boil for a further minute or so.

Add the potatoes and chicken mixture to the yogurt, then boil together for 5 minutes. Serve the stew on a bed of bulgur wheat.

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